The defendant had pled not guilty to a charge of entering into a facility which would facilitate money laundering. The court upheld that plea. The prosecutor now appealed.
Held: The appeal failed, although under section 328 it is not necessary for criminal property to exist at the moment when parties come to a prohibited arrangement, the arrangement must relate to property which is criminal property at the time when the arrangement begins to operate on it; and that on the facts of this case the property had not become criminal property at the time when the arrangement began to operate on it.
The prosecution submitted that the arrangement fell squarely within the ambit of section 328. The Court treated the case as indistinguishable from Geary and rejected the argument. Lloyd Jones LJ said: ‘Although the arrangement particularised in count two is limited to facilitation of the retention, use and control of criminal property, facilitation of the acquisition of the money via those accounts is, on the Crown’s factual case, an integral part of that arrangement. It seems to us that in these circumstances it is both artificial and illegitimate to seek to sever one element of an integral arrangement (facilitation of acquisition) in order to leave other elements (facilitation of retention, use and control) which, if considered in isolation to constitute the arrangement, would relate to criminal property. Moreover, the position cannot be improved by artificially limiting the particulars of offence alleged in count two to certain elements of the wider arrangement which the Crown maintains was in fact entered into.’
Lloyd-Jones LJ, Irwin, Green JJ
[2013] EWCA Crim 2237
Bailii
Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 328(1)
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – Geary, Regina v CACD 30-Jul-2010
The defendant agreed to help a friend named Harrington to hide some money for a period. Under the arrangement Harrington transferred around andpound;123,000 into the defendant’s bank account. The defendant used some of it to make some purchases for . .
Cited by:
Appeal from – GH, Regina v SC 22-Apr-2015
Appeal against conviction for entering into an arrangement for the retention of criminal funds. The defendant said that at the time of the arrangement there were not yet any criminal funds in existence. A had set up websites intending to con . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Crime
Updated: 26 November 2021; Ref: scu.518813